AT the end of yet another traumatic – but what passes as normal these days – week in the life of a Bolton Wanderers fan, we made our weary way for our Doombar deliberations with plenty to discuss and try and get our heads around.
With the training ground shut, the stadium safety certificate under threat of withdrawal, unpaid staff, players, police, business rates, taxes and who knows what else, it was a wonder we could get the match on.
Unsurprisingly, any takeover talks are taking longer than expected while someone sorts this mess out.
For whatever reason there was no visible police presence outside the stadium, although bouncers at the Harvester said there were four police officers about in an unmarked car.
Phil Parkinson, banished to the stands, somehow managed to cobble a team together with Will Buckley, Jack Hobbs and captain-for-the-day Andrew Taylor coming in for the suspended trio of Jason Lowe, Craig Noone and David Wheater.
The crowd were behind the team from the start, and the team responded.
After a poor first half between two poor teams, Wanderers managed to raise their game and got two well-taken goals from Pawel Olkowski and Gary O’Neil.
But it wouldn’t be Bolton Wanderers without putting us through some squeaky-bum time as we went into defensive mode and Millwall pulled one back with a couple of minutes to go.
But we held out and got three valuable points against one of our relegation rivals.
I then had the pleasure of attending the 22nd annual dinner of the Lancaster Whites, along with guest speaker, The Bolton News’ Wanderers writer Marc Iles, and we toasted just about everybody and everything we could.
Wanderers are still odds-on to go down, but this could be the turning point.
If we can get something against Sheffield Wednesday in midweek, we can go to Wigan and come back with more than a decent pie.
Credit must be given to the fans and players who have stuck by the club during very difficult circumstances.
There is a real camaraderie building up between the players and the fans, with Jason Lowe, Remi Matthews and David Wheater going into the club to talk to the staff.
There are very strong rumours the takeover could happen over the next day or two. Let’s hope it does, and we can get back to some form of financial stability.
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